Restaurant review: Shakespeare & Co

Name Shakespeare & Co.

Address Safa Centre, Jumeirah
Phone number 04-3941121

Hours 7AM-1AM

Reservations no

Specialties The decor. Beautiful furniture, walls, and flooring. They recently changed the furniture and now it has more lace and in my opinion has changed from a more French country style to Regency English style.
Special Gimmicks playroom for children and an outdoor's section that stays air conditioned throughout the year.

Ambience Amazing because of the low lighting and comfortable couches.

Favourite table The couch hidden inside the alcove near the children's playroom.

Cuisine Mixed. A combination of Lebanese, Italian, French, and a little bit of Asian.

Attire Casual

Prices Moderate. Starters at around AED30-40, main courses range from AED50-100 depending on what it is.

Who went with me Shamma

Occasion Breakfast

What I ordered Chocolate Viennoise and caramel and almond crepe

What others had Turkey and cheese sandwich and a cafe latte.

Total bill with tip AED110

Usual crowd People living around the neighborhood. During the mornings, moms who drop their children off to school. Evenings, shisha people.

Rating:
bread entree 8/10

waiting area nonexistent

entertainment 5/10

appetizers 8/10

dessert 10/10

atmosphere 10/10

cleanliness 10/10

soup 8/10. amazing tomato soup

portion size 9/10

servers 10/10

bathrooms 8/10 (one unisex bathroom)

salad 7/10

service 10/10

crowd 7/10

parking 10/10
Overall 8.5/10

Eye Candy

The Necessary, The Indispensable, and the Indulgent

Good, creative baking, like good photography, doesn't depend on the tools that you use. It's all about you and your perceptions, intuitions, and inherent talent. Although, with both photography and baking, having certain tools does make the process easier, more fun, and generally a better experience. Here are some images of certain baking tools that are my favourite!

Pastry brush and mechanical sifter. The pastry brush is perfect for greasing cake tins. I used to use spray olive oil before, but the butter brush makes it a lot better.. texture-wise, as well as ease of removal wise. The mechanical sifter is another God-sent invention. It makes a thousand times easier and faster to sift flour although sifting icing sugar can be a nuisance with this. It gets stuck and jammed.
This white sifter is the old-fashioned sifter that works amazing for icing sugar. The rolling pin is a pink silicon rolling pin that is perfect for rolling out dough for biscuits, bread, etc... the dough doesn't stick to the pin as it would if it were wooden. A rubber spatula is another indispensable tool that is used to gather excess dough/mixture. It also helps in folding in- a challenging but easy baking technique.

This is a flat-bladed knife for applying icing/frosting over cakes. This picture is here for entertaining purposes only... look at the reflection! Thought it was fun! =)

I CANNOT live without these! *sigh* my little measuring cups..

This I got from Lakeland in Mirdif City Center. The numbers on the measuring jug are slanted so that you don't have to crane/angle your neck in order to read the measurements once you've placed liquid inside the jug.

Mini muffin tins that work great for making little tarts!

Silicon tart tins! Easy extraction! And a whisk- obviously.. we all know what that's for.. and a wire rack that makes cooling amazing! If you leave cakes or other baked items in their tins or trays, they might overcook.. and the taste is different.. wire racks are amazing for all round cooling.

The best part! This usually gives the theme to your cupcakes! I'd love to learn how to design my own!

Spices, Pasta, and Flour

My favourite part of the entire kitchen is a little shelf that I have where I store all my spices, pasta, flour, sugar and rice. I've placed them all in transparent jars and labelled them in adorable pink round stickers. It makes it very easy to locate things and is also amazing for when I feel creative in the kitchen. All I have to do is stare at the shelf and visualize all the spices I'd like to use.

So, in a little burst of creativity, I decided to play around with the spice jars, and pasta and flour containers and take some photographs. Here are some of them:

:)

Supermarket Series: 1 > Spinneys

So I got this idea a while back to visit the many different supermarkets in Dubai and pick out what I liked best or what I thought would work really well in certain types of foods. First up is Spinney's.. only because it's closest to where I live!

Here's a small selection of what I like from Spinney's..

These are dried berries and cherries with raisins. It is made from authentic dried fruit and one packet contains 170g. Manufactured by Forest Feast. Great for muesli, fruit cakes, or even a healthy yoghurt snack!

Plum tomatoes! Also known as Roma tomatoes, this is the perfect type of tomato to use for making sauces. The texture of the interior makes processing these tomatoes just right. Here is one recipe from the Food Network that uses plum tomatoes for a sauce: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ciao-america-with-mario-batali/fresh-plum-tomato-sauce-recipe/index.html

Dr. Oetker's lemon and orange sugar slices! Great for decorating cupcakes with or even just munching on. These are suitable for vegetarians, too.

The carton in the background is Cawston Press's original fruit apple and ginger juice (1% ginger extract). 10 whole apples are pressed into every carton - according to the bottle! - and this becomes one of your five a day servings of fruit and vegetables! A 100ml serving contains 44 calories. Once you open the carton, be sure to refrigerate it and use it within five days!

The other bottle is Waitrose Sparkling Lemonade with Lemon Juice. There are no artificial flavourings and one serving of 250ml contains 115 calories. Refrigerate once open and consume within three days. The ingredients are carbonated water, sugar, lemon juice from concentrate, citric acid, flavouring, acidity regulator- sodium citrates, preservatives - sodium benzoate and potassium sorbate.

Enjoy! =)